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<div id="content">
<div id="table-of-contents">
<h2>Table of Contents</h2>
<div id="text-table-of-contents">
<ul>
<li><a href="#orgd76f6a4">1. Few ideas:</a></li>
<li><a href="#org86521ba">2. Draft:</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<p>
Free software story
</p>

<div id="outline-container-orgd76f6a4" class="outline-2">
<h2 id="orgd76f6a4"><span class="section-number-2">1</span> Few ideas:</h2>
<div class="outline-text-2" id="text-1">
<ul class="org-ul">
<li>the initiation - free software usage, merits and motivation</li>
<li>exclusive use of free software for teaching</li>
<li>examples to include:
<ul class="org-ul">
<li>Online coaching for US students using Jitsi and GNU/Linux
<ul class="org-ul">
<li>Usage of Xournal for whiteboard</li>
</ul></li>
<li>op-mattermost and its usage to advocate free software with
OpenProject</li>
<li>GNU LibreJs contribution and receiving first donation</li>
<li>Savapage stint</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>

<p>
Hints - strong storytelling for all those cases.
</p>
</div>
</div>

<div id="outline-container-org86521ba" class="outline-2">
<h2 id="org86521ba"><span class="section-number-2">2</span> Draft:</h2>
<div class="outline-text-2" id="text-2">
<p>
My motivation to write and contribute to free software work has always
been freedom and money. For me writing (both program and paragraph)
have been a means of income and survival for the last few years.
</p>


<p>
I used to work for big companies before who paid handsomely for writing
proprietary software. The transition to free software was a
challenging one - what led me to it was a bigger cause which was
freedom of users: including myself. I still can't wrap my head around
the notion of 'freedom' as an abstract concept and its applicability
to software. Is software freedom really that important when there are
other freedoms which are constantly at stake? Freedom of speech,
expression, living, movement, identity and so on. All of those matter
more when compared to software freedom. Software freedom may help in
achieving those in some ways, however, it cannot exist as an isolated
moral or ethical principle. Human freedom always takes
center-stage. Also, the notion that 'proprietary software is
fundamentally unethical' is a flawed argument. There are examples of
unethical designs, implementations and usages, however, that cannot
apply for all proprietary software. It cannot be a zero-sum
proposition. Having said that, free software generally are benevolent
and freedom respecting, however, not every user requirement can be and
would be satiated by it.
</p>

<p>
Free software has helped me in learning about software
development, implementation, design, version control, collaboration
and communities. This has definitely been an exciting journey, one
that has lived with me for over a decade now and will continue to
be. Over the last few years, I have met many people who contributed to
free software and have learnt a thing or two from them. The challenges
they face in terms of earning revenue for the work they do. One such
example is Savapage - a Free/Libre Open Source (FLOSS) printing portal founded by
Rijk Ravestein from Netherlands. The project was recognized
(<a href="https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/SavaPage">https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/SavaPage</a>) as free software more than
year ago by the FSF. Even though there were users for Savapage across
all over the world: Africa, Asia and Europe, it wasn't able to make a
decent revenue - not enough for business expansion. I learnt Free
Software Advocacy from Rijk and was introduced to Free Software
Business Practice (<a href="https://wiki.librepractice.org/doku.php">https://wiki.librepractice.org/doku.php</a>). Rijk is a
free software practitioner and helps those who want to adopt free
software practices.
</p>

<p>
My journey of using free software for business started through a
teaching gig that I did for couple of students from US who wanted to
learn Python programming. I used free video communication tool Jitsi
for conducting the sessions. Xournal for whiteboard and notes
creation. Had the complete set up created on Trisquel GNU/Linux
running a Libreboot X200s machine
(<a href="https://girishm.info/MyComputer.html">https://girishm.info/MyComputer.html</a>). This setup used 100% free
software with no proprietary blobs - not even the firmware blobs. I got
paid for the gig and the students were happy to learn more about
computers, free software and programming in the due course as opposed
to what was taught traditionally in their schools using proprietary
counterparts. I still continue to teach those students and am actively
seeking more who can learn about the fundamentals of computer
programming, mathematics and free software. My service was enlisted on
the FSF directory (<a href="https://www.fsf.org/resources/service">https://www.fsf.org/resources/service</a>) for the
same. Apart from that, I had written this free software integration
(<a href="https://sr.ht/~girishm/op-mattermost">https://sr.ht/~girishm/op-mattermost</a>) for OpenProject (a fork of
Redmine) project management tool in Mattermost teams software. The
free software integration needs donations to support its development
infrastructure and implementation of new features despite its recent
sponsorship from OpenProject Foundation, Berlin.
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="postamble" class="status">
<p class="author">Author: Girish M</p>
<p class="date">Created: 2022-12-09 Fri 16:32</p>
<p class="validation"><a href="http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=referer">Validate</a></p>
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